suburban soccer mom minus the kids

Jesus

In the US (at least I’m not sure about other countries) the bulk of Christians tend to lean towards Republican candidates, which is why people like Trump talk at the graduations of Christian schools. However, I’m fiercely Christian and fiercely feminist and liberal. You may be asking yourself, well how does that work? How can you vote for a pro-choice candidate? How can you be so socially liberal, women were created for men, man shall not lay with man, the list can go on and on of all the reason I should be socially conservative. However, there are some major issues that stick out to me as a Christian when you think like this.

1. “Whoever is without sin among you, let him be the first to cast a stone at her.” John 8:7 and “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” Matthew 7:1

As a Christian, I can recognize that I am fallible. I am not perfect, I am a sinner, and ever so thankful that Jesus gave his life for those sins and for my imperfections. It is because of Him that I can sin and be forgiven. How is it my decision to now try and take away someone else’s free will? I am not God, I am not Jesus, therefore I do not have the ability to condemn someone to hell, and therefore I will not even try. Don’t cast a stone, be a shoulder. Jesus sat with the sinners, he washed their feet, he doesn’t want us to judge. It’s not what we should be doing. I am not one to make a judgment call like that, heck I’m not one to make a judgment call on where to eat dinner.

2. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28, “For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.” 1 Corinthians 11:12, “She girds her loins with strength, and strengthens her arms.” Proverbs 31:17 “and God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.” Psalm 46:5

In Jesus, all people are equal. There is no race, gender, nationality, etc. Jesus is not xenophobic. Jesus accepts all the same- disregarding gender as an issue in his eye. While yes, Eve did come from Adam, every man came from a woman after that, but all creatures of earth are God’s. He made women strong, He protects women. In the eyes of Jesus, we are the same. In the eye’s of God, we are equal.

“And as you wish others would do to you, do so to them.” Luke 6:31 (the golden rule), “Love does no Harm to a neighbor. Therefore Love is the fulfilment of the law.” Romans 13:10, “30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31.

The Bible says it over and over again: love is the most important thing. At the end of the day, I think they only people we are hurting when we choose to not love our neighbors is ourselves. God is first and always will be, but treat everyone one else the same way that you expect to be treated. He blesses us with life, why should we want to take the same gift away from anyone else? Jesus died for everyone to have the right to be a sinner, no one is infallible.

When you vote, I believe that it’s important to vote for equality- everyone’s rights. That includes their right to religious freedom, the right to let hurt people into the country (trust me it’s what Jesus would do), and the right to sin, you’re sinning, I’m sinning, we’re all sinning. When I vote there are two really big things that I like to keep in mind: who will help children/ work to irradicate the poverty cycle in this country? and who is going to help America be a welcoming place for all those that need to take refuge? If that’s a Republican, that’s who I will vote for. However, recent history has shown that I’m voting liberal and voting for everyone’s rights.

*Disclaimer* I felt the need to put a disclaimer at the beginning of this post because while writing it I feel as if I’m coming off as not as accepting as I am and I really do love all of my friends, no matter what you believe. I’m just sharing my struggles with how sometimes you need that moral connection. This is typically why I don’t like to bring my religion to my blog because I have friend of other faiths and I don’t want to feel as if they can’t be friends with me because we don’t believe the same thing. That’s not how I feel at all and I just feel the need to clarify right from the start that I’m not trying to offend anyone. If I was I wouldn’t put this here.

This is a post that’s been weighing on me for quite sometime now and I just wasn’t sure. Yet, for the past three weeks it just keeps weighing on my more and more, guess that’s God for you. Someone must need this message so I’m just going to share what my first year was like being a Christian at a school that doesn’t have any type of religious affiliation.

Growing up I went to public school, but the difference between public school in Lancaster County and the rest of the world is that it’s basically a Christian school. As you know from my post on shoving religion down people’s throats (read that here) I was often not viewed as a Christian (even though Catholics are Christians) most people shared my morals even if we didn’t have the exact same beliefs. It was always easy to find friends that didn’t drink, didn’t have sex, we just had a lot of the same morals and it was really easy just to find someone that you can agree on those sort of things with.

When I went to college I expected some shock, but I honestly did not think that a lot of people hook up and a lot of people drink. Well I was really wrong. The first Sunday, I of course found Catholic church within walking distance and I quickly noticed that I was one of the few who did this. Sunday mornings campus is dead, maybe a few people here or there, but other than some people walking back to their rooms after a night of fun, there’s not many of us heading to church at all. That’s when I knew it might be difficult and different to find people that shared the same sort of morals as myself.

I’m not opposed to hanging out with people of other religions whatsoever, that’s not what I base a friendship off of, I look for people who I can talk to and get along with, something that comes with that often is sharing morals. I did make friends at school and I love them, however the one thing that I didn’t think I would struggle with that I found that I am is dating.

Not that I haven’t talked to any straight, single guys this year, well for the most part, and I think there were two huge deterrents with the idea of even putting myself out there, with the exception that I still wasn’t over someone in my past for the whole first semester. Number one, I’m waiting for marriage. I don’t want to get too much into this, but I strongly believe that sex should be reserved for someone you want to spend the rest of your life with so that’s what I want to do, and I don’t think that’s what a lot of guys at this age want to do. This is a major place where I think going to non-religious school is hard. I hear about hook ups all the time and that’s not what I’m looking for when I talk to a guys, I’m looking for a friendship that maybe one day when I’m ready could possibly turn into something more. The second reason being I’m afraid of commitment, which does not go with my morals but that’s just the second reason.

Honestly, being a Christian at a non-Christian school can be hard but if you think of it as a test (I don’t, some do) maybe it will help. When it comes down to it find people who share some of the same morals and you’ll be able to get along. When it comes to dating, the right person will be the right person and you will do the right things for the two of you as long as you are firm in what you believe. If you ever struggle find a chaplain on campus, my school even has one! Or you can go to the church and they might even have a little support group and pastors are always willing to talk to help anyone struggling with you faith. I hope maybe I helped someone with this post, if not I guess that’s okay too. God led me to write it either way.